With rising medical costs, it has become the practice in construction of patient care buildings to reduce the floor space afforded each patient and this is likely to become the prevalent practice particularly where local or state governments are funding the structure. While different considerations may apply to military or rescue equipment, space restrictions are likely to apply since overall weight reduction is desired in such equipment such as medical trailers and the like.
In the case of elderly patients who are substantially bed ridden for most of the time as well as other patients who have difficulty moving about, it has also been the practice to assign such patients to rooms that are equipped with lavatory and toilet units to both accommodate the patient's needs and to lessen the work of the caretakers and nurses assigned to such patients. Where the room floor space is reduced for economic or other reasons, installation and use of such units have given rise to designs that both afford facilities for the patient's needs and compensate for the reduction in room size. Such designs are exemplified in U.S. Pat. No. 3,829,906, No. 6,158,060, No. 6,637,049 and Design Pat. No. 333,621. The structures shown in several of these patents have the common features of providing a washing sink and a cover for the toilet bowl in addition to the usual bowl lid where the cover is movable to a stored position when access to the bowl is required and to a lowered position where the cover may function as a seat for an attendant, the patient or a guest of the patient.
As a result of statutory enactment of regulations imposing restrictions on facilities in terms of access by disabled persons such as those confined to wheel chairs, many of these designs can no longer be installed. For example, the height of the sink upper edge must now be at a fixed distance above the floor to enable a person in a wheel chair access to the sink and water faucets (see Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990).